Recent News

We are excited to announce that WorkPlace HR will be an exhibitor at next week’s 27th Annual Industry Liaison Group National Conference in Atlanta. The conference will run from Tuesday, July 27th through Friday, July 31st. If you plan to attend this exciting conference, please be sure to stop by Booth 5 and introduce yourself to the WorkPlace HR team. We’re looking forward to seeing you at the conference and are bringing lots of goodies with us to make your visit to our booth fun as well as educational.  See you there!

FortneyScott and WorkPlace HR are offering our clients and friends a four-part series of weekly audio seminars addressing the federal contractor obligations relating to workforce matters.  The sessions will review the new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“ARRA”), its associated reporting obligations, socioeconomic obligations, and prevailing wages and benefits.  These seminars will provide practical information to assist corporate counsel and human resources professionals in complying with their federal contractor obligations. 

The audio seminars will be held every Tuesday from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (EDT).  The first session will be held on Tuesday, July 14th.  The sessions will include time for your questions.  These seminars are being offered at no charge (yes, free!), however all attendees must register in advance in order to receive the dial-in information and seminar materials.

A Senate bill, “Healthy Families Act” (S. 1152) was introduced by Senator Kennedy on May 21.  The bill is a companion to the “Healthy Families Act” (H.R. 2460) introduced by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 18. 

"Doing Business with the Government: An HR Perspective" 

Workplace privacy disputes are becoming more common every day, as employees post their grievances on blogs, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and as employers increase monitoring of e-mail and Internet activity. For example, the recent Domino’s Pizza debacle involving employees’ suggestions of food tampering and the responsive posting from Domino’s CEO on YouTube to bolster customer confidence exemplifies the ease by which workplace disputes play out publicly. 

Department of Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solia announced the agency’s FY 2010 budget on May 7, 2009. The DOL budget totals $104.5 billion, while the annual budget for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) will increase from $82.1 million to $109.5 million. The OFCCP budget includes the hiring of 213 additional FTE to enforcement related to compensation, the development of a new case management system and increased funding for litigation. This budget is published on the DOL’s website at:  http://www.dol.gov/dol/budget/2010/PDF/bib.pdf.

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis has announced that the Department of Labor will hire 250 additional field investigators for the Wage and Hour Division, the agency charged with investigating alleged violations of the minimum wage, overtime and prevailing wage laws, as well as the Family and Medical Leave Act.  The staffing increase comes in the wake of a report by the Government Accountability Office, which was highly critical of the Department of Labor’s enforcement efforts.  According to Secretary Solis, “The addition of these 250 new field investigators, a staff increase of more than a third, will reinvigorate the work of this important agency, which has suffered a loss of experienced personnel over the last several years. The U.S. Department of Labor is the voice for working families, and I am dedicated to ensuring compliance with federal labor laws to both strengthen our economy and protect workers in this country.”

 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) is urging lawmakers to enact federal legislation to strengthen prohibitions on gender-based pay discrimination, in the form of the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 12/S. 182), which may include a revival of the Equal Opportunity (“EO”) survey.

The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 28th that it will allow an additional 30 days for public comments on the proposed extension of currently approved information collection for employment eligibility verification on Form I-9. Comments will now be accepted through May 28, 2009. More information is available here.

The United States Supreme Court heard a case today challenging the "disparate impact" standards of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  A group of white and Hispanic firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut filed a reverse discrimination claim after their testing results were not certified due to a disparity in the test results as compared to African-American test-takers. This case could result in a fundamental shift in employment testing and civil rights laws. A decision is pending from the Court.